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William Simson the younger was born in about 1763 and probably baptised at Berechurch, Essex, the son of William Simson the elder and Alice Simson.

He must have moved the few miles to Ardleigh shortly after 1796, as he is not listed in the unofficial census for Ardleigh of that year but is at Ardleigh by 1800, when he would have been about thirty-seven. We know this from a commonplace book, or diary, kept by his friend (and I think cousin), Benjamin Page of West House Farm, in the nearby village of Fingringhoe. This diary came to light in 1900 thanks to a Mr G. Page, as reported in the local press at the time. 

The diary gives some insight into the day-to-day life of an Essex yeoman farmer of the time. Among some fascinating details, Page records that in April 1800 he ‘Went and dined W. Simson’s, Ardleigh. Could not get the colt into the ferry boat [probably Wivenhoe Ferry], was obliged to swim it through’. And on 3 June 1800 he ‘dined at Mr Simson’s, Ardleigh, and fished in his ponds, and caught a great number of Crusoel Carp [sic, probably crucian carp] out of every pond we fished’.

Three days later, 6 June, Page records that William’s brother Edward ‘returned from the East Indias having gone about 26 months in Lord Duncan Indiaman’. This ship, the Lord Duncan, was one of a number of ‘Indiamen’ run by the East India Company. Voyages would last about two years, out to India and the east, and back to London. Jackson’s Oxford Journal for 31 May 1800 reports the safe arrival of a fleet from India, amongst which is the Lord Duncan, which sailed from Bencoolen. In attempting to land at the Isle of Wight the Lord Duncan and another ship were captured by a ‘French row-boat privateer’:

they had with them their dispatches both for Government and for the Company; it is hoped they had time and precaution to destroy them; since the information they contain, particularly from Bencoolen, might be of importance to the enemy.

Bencoolen (now Bengkulu, Indoensia) was a British-controlled outpost and garrison. The East India Company established a pepper-trading centre there in 1685. So was William’s brother a spice merchant or a mariner?

On 11 October 1801, again according to Page’s diary, William, Edward and Benjamin Page went shooting in a field belonging to the yeoman Thomas Cooper of Ardleigh (most likely son-in-law to the late John Simson of Dedham, and possibly thus a cousin). Page writes that on this occasion a brewer called John Bautree accused them of shooting his tame partridges.

Ann Cross

In 1798 William married Ann Cross (1772–1837), youngest daughter of John Cross, a farmer of Rendlesham, Suffolk, at that village’s parish church. He must have been illiterate as he signed the register with a X.

William was typical of the yeoman class of the day: the census for 1821 lists him as an ‘overseer of the poor’. He worked as a farrier, or veterinary surgeon, an occupation which would be passed down in the Simson family father-to-son throughout the nineteenth century, and into the twentieth, and which William may well have learned from his own father. 

He and Ann had two sons, both born and baptised at Ardleigh: William junior (1802–32) and Edward John (my great-great grandfather, 1807–69). A daughter, Ann, was baptised with William junior at Ardleigh in 1803, but died aged seven in 1807.

William drew up his will, written in a clear hand, on 6 March 1812, appointing his wife Ann executrix. He also appointed two executors, John Fenn (another yeoman farmer of Ardleigh) and Philip Dykes, and bequeaths them ten guineas and a gold mourning ring each. According to the will, William leased his farm from a William Webb of Ardleigh and he had a share of an estate in Great Bromley purchased by his father from a John Skinner, which at the time (1812) was occupied by his widowed mother, Alice.

He died in September 1825 and was buried at Ardleigh, in a prominent place by the outside west wall of the church, an indication that he was of some importance in the village. 

On his death, William’s elder son, William junior, having reached the age of twenty-one, became the executor to the will, which was proved on 2 July 1827. However not long after this, in October 1832, William junior also died, at the age of only thirty, at his mother’s house at Woodbridge, Suffolk according to an announcement in the Bury Post. He was buried at St Mary’s church, Woodbridge. Why did Ann move to this Suffolk town after her husband died?

Ann died five years later, on 3 December 1837, at the age of sixty-six, at William junior’s house in Ardleigh, according to an announcement in the Bury Post. She was also buried at Ardleigh, with her husband and infant daughter.

William’s mother, Alice, also outlived him and died at Great Bromley in the spring of 1830.